Dates no longer available for Fall 2006

These days are no longer available for scheduling during the Fall 2006 program:

Thursday, October 5
Thursday, October 12

There are other days with only limited availability. Please contact me for details.

Hands On History Dates for Fall 2006

In October we have 11 days available for you to bring your class or home schoolers for some Hands On History. Dates are October 3-6, 9-13 and 16-17. Scheduling is done on a first-come, first-serve basis. We're starting to fill up already!

Hands On History - Western Movement

In the "Great Leap Westward" of 1779-80 two thirds of the people who made the move into the Cumberland settlements died in the first year, men, women, and children. Settling the frontier was a family struggle. Children were a necessary ingredient in the formula that permitted westward expansion. This program uses the tools and materials used by children their everyday lives on the frontier to explain their importance to the creation of the United States.

Description of Frontier Resources and how it got started

Frontier Resources is a traveling museum that was developed to provide a supplement to other museums, schools, historical societies and events for presenting programs on the history of the Midwest. We have tools, animals and people not normally available to most sites and more importantly the skills to use them and teach students how to use them. Our principal focus is "Hands on History".

We believe that involving young people in the activities of our past is one of the best ways to gain and keep their interest in History. We also believe that History is an important preparation for the future. At present, the organization, like any other museum has full time employees, a part time staff and volunteers. We also have access to wagons, plows, spinning wheels, and butter churns as well as most of the other tools of frontier living.

Frontier Resources was formed in 1994 by Gerry Barker. He recruited three other people who were equally interested in using Living History as a teaching method. Over the years we have presented the history of the Midwestern frontier to hundreds of thousands of school children through a series of hands-on programs as well as taking part in numerous living history projects such as building homesteads, stations and fur posts. We have taken part in military campaigns, herded cattle, built roads and gone on pack trains and wagon trains. In all of these activities the purpose has been research or teaching.

Hands On History - Wagoner's Lad (Freight Wagon)

An examination of the transportation industry in early America with a focus on the roles children held in the industry. The class is usually taught with a circa 1755 freight wagon and a team of four oxen. We have the students handle the equipment and a few from each class get a chance to drive the oxen. It is a very real insight into the world that moved at the speed of an ox.

Pictures and additional info here.

Jumps research

Over the years various members of Frontier Resources have been researching 18th Century Middleground Frontier clothing and gear. Some of that research has been posted on my private blog: http://timely-thoughts.blogspot.com/2006/06/jumps-research-recreating-cries-of.html

Hands On History at Quaker Knoll Campground

For several years Frontier Resources has offered a school program designed to capture the interest of the student of Ohio history. The program makes maximum use of Hands-On and interactive learning.

Our specialty is “Hands-On History”. Our programs are designed to give students a taste of the activities, both work and play, of children of early Ohio. In other posts I will go into more detail about the various topics our members can present.

Quaker Knoll Campground is a lovely site on the north end of Cowen Lake State Park. It is located at 675 Sprague Road, Wilmington, Ohio 45177. We are also piloting a program that will come to your school.

Our 2006 Autumn program runs October 3-6, 9-13 and 16-17, 2006. Our 2007 dates are May 14-24, 2007 and Oct 1-11, 2007. The program takes about 4 hours, running from 9:30 a.m. until 2:00 P.M, or as your busing schedule permits. Cost is $5.00 per student. There is no cost for teachers and chaperones.

Please contact me for additional information, or to make your reservation.